Line #27 Main/SandBridgeAtLowTide


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11	[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tidal_landbridge.jpg]]
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13	An apparently inaccessible island has a secret access -- a bridge formed by a high sand bar that is revealed only at low tide -- and sometimes only at night as well.
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15	Not only does this allow an island to be a little accessed secret, but also provides the opportunity for people [[ClosedCircle to be trapped]] on an island while the plot happens to them.
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17	----
18	!!Examples:
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21	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
22	* An instance of this trope is represented by the card “Stretch of Beach” in the Greed Island arc of ''Manga/HunterXHunter''.
23	* ''Manga/LoveHina'':
24	** In the FestivalEpisode, Sarah and Su strand themselves on an island, where a "shipwrecked" Kitsune soon joins them. After a night of worrying about how to get themselves rescued, help comes to them across a bridge of sand revealed by the tide.
25	** The same happened in the BeachEpisode, but to Naru, Keitaro, and Sarah. They spend the day on the island, until nightfall, when the tide lowers and they're able to walk across and make their way home.
26	* In ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'', Marie discovers a sand bridge that forms at least once a day between the beach of the deserted island the children find themselves on, and the piece of the wrecked ship which is caught upon a rock just offshore.
27	* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
28	** ''Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries'': In the episode called "The Crystal Onix", Ash and the gang find that the way to the mythical cave is a sandbar that only appears at certain times of the day.
29	** ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesAdvancedGeneration'': Brawley, the Gym Leader of Dewford Town, has established a private “sparring area” (complete with electricity for a fridge and lighting, as well as an arena) in the cavern of a small islet off the bigger Dewford Island, where he lets Ash rematch him; the connecting land bridge is only accessible briefly each day.
30	** ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite'': In "The Island of Illusions", Grand Spectrala Islet is a Pokémon sanctuary that could only be accessed via a land bridge from Grand Spectrala Island when the tide is low, as the other bridge was destroyed long ago.
31	** ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY'': The bridge that connects Shalour City to the Tower of Mastery only shows up when the tide is low.
32	* After all the trouble Wataru goes through to get off of Promised Island in ''Literature/SisterPrincess'', he discovers that he could have ''walked'' away on the one night a month when the dry land path connecting it to the Japanese shore appears.
33	* In ''Manga/UmiNoMisaki'', a small island is connected to Okitsu by one of these for a few days a year. Naturally, there's a story and cape maiden ritual associated with it.
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36	[[folder:Comic Books]]
37	* In the ''ComicBook/GilJourdan'' comic "La Voiture Immergée" (The Submerged Car) there is an 8-km stone bridge at low tide. The baddie killed his victim and attempted to kill the hero, by siphoning their fuel tank so they'll run out of fuel right in the middle and be swept away by the tide. [[spoiler:Gil and co. set their car on fire to draw attention from the coast and get rescued.]]
38	* ''ComicBook/{{Northlanders}}'': In the two issue "The Shield Maidens" arc, three [[AmazonBrigade Viking women fight]] off an army of Saxons from inside an {{Ancient Rom\|e}}an fortress that is only reachable at low tide via a sand bridge.
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41	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
42	* ''Film/ExodusGodsAndKings'' has the Red Sea parting portrayed as this. Instead of Moses parting the Red Sea with divine magic, he is given [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane cryptic foreknowledge]] of a well-timed tsunami that draws back the tide abnormally low for his Exodus to cross over the resulting bare sea floor, and then Ramses's pursuers get slammed by the subsequent GiantWallOfWateryDoom shortly afterwards.
43	* ''Film/{{The Scarlet Pimpernel\|1982}}'' ends up on one (Mont Saint-Michel, below in Real Life), partly in an effort to create a ClosedCircle where Sir Percy can confront Chauvelin without his men as backup.
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46	[[folder:Literature]]
47	* ''Literature/AbelsIsland'': Not quite, but after a few weeks of no rain, the water gets lower and the current slow enough that Abel imagines he might now be able to swim across. [[spoiler:He makes it]].
48	* Plays a critical part in the famous Old English poem ''Literature/TheBattleOfMaldon'', a commemoration of real-life events: In 991 AD, an army of vikings had landed on an island in the Blackwater estuary in Essex which was connected to the mainland by a causeway only accessible at low tide. Englishmen and Vikings fighting over the causeway make up the first part of the poem.
49	* ''Literature/TheBelgariad'': The local {{Mordor}} can be reached by a chain of islands where a path emerges at low tide. The heroes use this path to sneak in for the final confrontation of the main pentalogy. {{Subverted\|Trope}} when the protagonists first discover it in the prequels; they anticipate it being guarded and inconspicuously cross the frozen northern sea instead.
50	* The title story from ''Literature/TheBloodyChamber'' takes place in a Mont Saint-Michel-inspired castle (see the RealLife section below), complete with a climactic crossing of such a bridge.
51	* In Michael [=McDowell=]'s ''Literature/TheElementals'', the family Gulf Coast vacation spot Beldame becomes utterly cut off at medium-to-high tide ... the better for its spooky goings-on to terrorize the characters.
52	* ''Literature/TheFamousFive'':
53	** In ''Five Go to Demon's Rocks'', the lighthouse is built out to sea, and can be reached on foot at low tide; otherwise, a boat is necessary. Some nearby underground caves are also flooded at high tide. When the Five are locked in the lighthouse, Julian and Dick try to escape through the foundation shaft of the lighthouse, but are thwarted by their enemies; and as they try to escape, the tide starts rising, threatening to drown them.
54	--->'''Dick:''' [[NightmareFuel I think this must be a bad dream.]] The tide's coming in.
55	** In ''Five Go to Smuggler's Top'', tides are not mentioned, but the island of Castaway (very similar to the Mont St Michel in France) was once an island until sea levels dropped. The island can only be reached by one road, with dangerous misty marshes on both sides.
56	* In ''Literature/{{Kidnapped}}'', David Balfour is stranded after a shipwreck on the tiny island of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erraid Erraid]] off the coast of Mull and survives by eating limpets for several days. He's then embarrassed to learn that it's a tidal island and he could have walked back to shore days ago; some local fishermen did try to tell him his mistake, but the LanguageBarrier between their Gaelic and David's English stopped the message from getting through.
57	* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' had a number of them, such as the monastery at the Trident delta and the castle that Bran hides in, although as the latter is nowhere near the ocean, tides as such are not involved.
58	* In Meredith Ann Pierce's ''The Woman Who Loved Reindeer'', one of these allows a migrating tribe to continue on their way. ([[TheFairFolk Capricious spirit-beings]] are involved.)
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61	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
62	* ''Series/BassieEnAdriaan'': In the France episode of "De Geheimzinnige Opdracht", the real-life example of Mont Saint-Michel is the hiding place of the package, with the riddle to find the package describing it as "a castle you can walk to if you're on time", which in this case means during low tide.
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65	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
66	* ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' includes a location in Crab Clan lands called the "Tidal Landbridge" which... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin is what you'd expect]]. Inevitably, it is best known for an incident in which a Crab Clan army and reinforcements from their Crane Clan rivals fought a group of Shadowlands invaders until the tide came back in with inevitable results.
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69	[[folder:Video Games]]
70	* ''VideoGame/TheBattleForWesnoth'': Though technically a safe ford across a raging river, the effect is much the same. Scenario 6 in the flagship campaign ''Heir to the Throne'', features the Thieves' Guild of the besieged city letting your army know of a hidden ford that will allow them to sneak into the city and flank the Orc invaders. In mechanical terms, meeting with the guild turns several water tiles into traversable land tiles.
71	* Done backwards in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV''; our heroes walk onto Saldine island, then find themselves stranded at high tide.
72	* ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive: Extreme Beach Volleyball'' has a sandbar as a place to play volleyball.
73	* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' has this as the gimmick of Chapter 17 on the Ilia route. One of these will appear if you wait for a few turns, providing a shortcut straight to the enemy base and letting you skip much of the map.
74	* ''VideoGame/LostInBlue'': While not a whole island, there's a sequestered area of the beach only accessible at low tide. The area contains resources that are otherwise hard to get, including a few mushroom types exclusive to the area and possibly early access to other things that usually wash up later. Getting trapped there isn't immediately fatal as one tide cycle isn't long either for a stranded Keith or neglected Skye to die on its own, but if it happens early on getting yourself out of the sudden resource dearth will be a primary goal for a while.
75	* ''VideoGame/MarioKart'':
76	** ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'''s Koopa Troopa Beach uses this trope as a shortcut.
77	** ''[[VideoGame/MarioKartDoubleDash Double Dash!]]'' has Peach Beach with a similar gimmick.
78	* Shoal Cave in ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'' has different tides depending on the time of day, essentially giving the cave two separate layouts
79	* The Oni Stepping Stones in ''VisualNovel/AoiShiro'', only exposed during low tide at certain times of the year.
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Western Animation]]
83	* ''WesternAnimation/BeingIan'': A sand bridge at low tide causes Ian to get stranded on a sand spit in "Bad Day at White Rock".
84	* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewScoobyDooMovies'': In "[[Recap/TheNewScoobyDooMoviesS1E8TheSecretOfSharkIsland The Secret of Shark Island]]", it's a regular wooden bridge rather than a sand bridge, but the route to Shark Island and its hotel is only accessible for a couple of days a week when the tide is low. Naturally, the hotel guests only discover this once they want to leave.
85	* ''WesternAnimation/ShapeIsland'': The episode "Circle Makes A Mistake" has Circle inviting the other shapes across a sand bridge to a smaller island containing ancient ruins, and unwittingly getting them stranded there because she forgot the tide comes up higher at night and covers the bridge, which wouldn't have been a problem if not for the ''other'' thing she forgot; that Square and Triangle have legs and can't just hover over the water as she can.
86	[[/folder]]
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88	[[folder:Real Life]]
89	* Mont Saint-Michel, a French islet on the coastline of Normandy, can be reached during the low tide by a bridge of sand (as long as you watch out for [[QuicksandSucks quicksand]]); eventually, an actual bridge was built. The tide is proverbially said to come back up at the speed of a galloping horse.
90	** Also, Saint Michael's Mount, a similar Cornish islet that can be reached by an artificial causeway, only accessible at low tide.
91	** In historical times, both were ordinary pieces of land -- the change to part-time island happened rapidly in geological terms but over a number of human generations. And causeways allow water traffic without having to build a drawbridge -- especially if the waterway is too wide for a drawbridge to be practical.
92	* The bar that gives Bar Harbor, Maine its name stretches out to an island at low tide. The tidal changes are actually quite spectacular.
93	* The wad/Watt/vade on the southern and south-eastern shores of the North Sea. People frequently trek out to the islands across the tidal flats during low tides as a family outing, though it is essential to pay attention to one's location and the tides, [[OhCrap lest one find the way back to dry land cut off by the rising tide]]. For this reason, a local guide is strongly recommended (and on some routes, required).
94	** The Waddenzee sits in between the mainland of the Netherlands and its tiny chain of islands.
95	** The Ostfriesisches Wattenmeer in Germany lies between East Frisia proper and its islands.
96	** The Nordfriesisches Wattenmeer (mostly German, but its northern end extends into Denmark) contains many islands, not just on its outer edges, but also ones right in the middle of the flats. Some of these islands, the ''Halligen'', are in fact so low-lying that they get entirely flooded during storms, except for small artificial hills on which the farmsteads are located.
97	* Lindisfarne in Northumberland, a popular tourist destination for its historic castle and monastery. There is now a tarmacked road to the island -- although it's still inaccessible at high tide. Worth visiting for its delicious mead!
98	* Burgh Island in Devon can be accessed by walking across the beach from Bigbury-on-Sea at low tide. The hotel on Burgh Island was the inspiration for the big house on the island in ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'' — although that island is not an example of one of these.
99	* A rather dramatic example occurred when there was significantly more water in the form of ice than in the form of, well, water, which allowed ancient people to literally walk over what is now the Bering Strait and into North America.
100	* Similarly, around the same time, the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines were all connected to mainland Southeast Asia in a landmass known as Sundaland, allowing ancient peoples to simply walk into these lands.
101	* Wrightsville Beach and Shell Island in North Carolina used to be connected by one of these until someone got the brilliant idea to add more sand to the sandbar, connecting the two permanently and giving them more land to build on to boot. So imagine what happened when Hurricane Fran came through and attempted to remake the original inlet...
102	* This is how Sometimes Island (an island in one of Kodiak Island's bays) got its name.
103	* Bribie Island just off Queensland, Australia used to have one of these but it disappeared when they dredged the channel for navigation purposes and the island is not connected to the mainland by a bridge.
104	* Charles Island in Milford, Connecticut, although a bit unfortunate in that leaving too early after low tide has the probable consequence of you getting stranded. Despite people clearly being visible from the beach nearby, this has left people stuck out there for ''days''.
105	* Jindo and Modo Islands in South Korea are connected [[http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jindo-modo-landbridge to each other]] by a causeway that opens up twice a year during low tides.
106	* In 1798, UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte and a small force tried to cross the Gulf of Suez where the water had receded but were nearly drowned by the returning tide. Afterwards, he speculated that the "Parting of the Red Sea" (and subsequent drowning of the pursuing Pharaoh's army) might have been inspired by a similar event (the Gulf of Suez is at the northern end of the Red Sea).
107	[[/folder]]

Context Main / SandBridgeAtLowTide